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A glass-recycling factory planned for the South Side has renewed many neighbors’ fears of pollution.

Phoenix-based Closed Loop Glass Solutions plans to build a new type of furnace and recycling system that promises to remove lead from old glass television tubes without sending the toxic metal into the air.

Closed Loop must emit less than 1 pound of lead per year, according to a permit approved by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

“We will be way under that in terms of our operations,” said Brent Benham, the company’s chief financial officer.

That promise has done little to mollify some South Side residents who say the area already is dominated by heavy industry.

“We don’t want to see a company that is in any way going to be emitting lead into the community,” said Eileen Neale, a member of the Alum Crest Acres Civic Community group and the Far South Columbus Area Commission. “We’re absolutely inundated with those kinds of facilities.”

Erin Strouse, an Ohio EPA spokeswoman, said the air-pollution permit will protect public health. The company violates its permit if it emits more than 0.94 pound of lead in a year.

The company also must apply for a new air-pollution permit within its first year of operation. That will mean more public review and scrutiny of the plant to ensure that it’s operating safely, Strouse said.

Three factories just east of the proposed glass plant on Watkins Road legally released a total of 13,902 pounds of air pollutants last year, according to federal data.

The toxins released by Georgia-Pacific, ArcelorMittal and Sherwin-Williams include ammonia, formaldehyde, toluene and xylene. The ArcelorMittal plant released 0.28 pound of lead.

Formaldehyde is a known cancer risk. Toluene and xylene can cause dizziness and nausea. Ammonia irritates the eyes, nose and throat.

Techneglas, a factory 2 1/2 miles northwest of Watkins Road that made glass tubes for televisions, emitted 730 pounds of lead compounds in 2004, the year it closed. The factory released 6,645 pounds in 2001.

Mary Hawkins, a member of the Marion-Franklin Civic Association, said Closed Loop’s proposed location, at 1635 Watkins Rd., is too close to Watkins Elementary School at 1520 Watkins.

Children, whose nervous systems are still developing, are considered more vulnerable than adults to lead poisoning.

“They talk about lead in paint, and there is such a big deal about that. Yet you bring something like this in so close to our children?” Hawkins said. “This just doesn’t make sense to me.”

The EPA has no control over where a plant is built, Strouse said. “We don’t have jurisdiction over zoning.”

Benham said the plant will use an electric furnace and technology that Closed Loop invented and tested in Arizona. Lead from scrap television screens will drop out of the molten glass and flow into ingot-shaped molds. The process will create lead and lead-free glass that can be sold for new uses. The glass itself forms a barrier to keep lead from getting into the air, he said.

“We’re cleaning the glass for reuse so we can quit filling our landfills,” Benham said. “We have a heavy belief in operations that are contained, that are not spewing anything out into the environment.”

The plant, which Closed Loop is to start building late next year, will provide 25 to 50 jobs, Benham said. The pay range has yet to be determined.